Planned Parenthood Flags $18 Million for Pro-abortion Candidates

Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, is setting aside a reported $18 million to help in the campaigns of mostly Democratic candidates who make a woman's right to kill her pre-born baby a predominant campaign plank. The campaign funding for this year's mid-term legislative and gubernatorial elections will represent the largest ever funding foray for the abortion giant, which received a record $542 million in government funding in 2012. According to its own latest annual report, Planned Parenthood's assets now exceed $1.5 billion.

Groups such as the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List have made it a priority mission to defund the group, which they see as a both a moral and fiscal parasite that is bleeding the American taxpayer with impunity. “Americans are sick and tired of underwriting the nation's largest abortion business,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List.

Much of the pro-abortion campaign money will flow through the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Planned Parenthood Votes. Officials of the abortion business, who announced the strategy in late February, said they would spend millions in over a dozen states with an emphasis on a half dozen races such as Senate contests in North Carolina, Alaska, and Montana, and gubernatorial contests in Pennsylvania and Florida, as well as the high-profile contest in Texas where Democratic, pro-abortion state Senator Wendy Davis has been waging a high-profile campaign for the office for nearly a year.

Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards, whose late mother Ann Richards was the pro-abortion governor of Texas in the early 1990s, predicted that “many of these races are going to be determined by women and women voters. To the extent that we still have politicians who are running on a platform to repeal women's access to health care and women's rights, that's a losing proposition.” Richards vowed that her Planned Parenthood would be “on the offense” to maintain the momentum for America's murderous abortion laws through the election of candidates who would keep her group well-funded.

Democratic functionaries were ecstatic with the news that the abortion icon would be pouring millions into their party's election efforts. “Planned Parenthood is a strong voice for women in Virginia and was a key partner in my run for governor,” cooed Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe, who was the beneficiary of some $2.4 million in Planned Parenthood money in her 2013 campaign. She recalled that Planned Parenthood “provided essential support to my campaign” by using its millions to frame the issue of abortion as a crucial “women's health” priority.

In Wisconsin, Planned Parenthood will target the defeat of Republican Governor Scott Walker, who signed a bill last year that helped to defund Planned Parenthood in the state. In endorsing Democratic, pro-abortion candidate Mary Burke, Planned Parenthood called the pro-life Walker “one of the most anti-women's health governors in the country.”

According to a report in December by theHuffington Post, Wisconsin ranks as one of the nine “worst states for reproductive rights,” which means that the Badger State is likely one of the nine most pro-life states and one of the safest for expectant mothers and their pre-born babies.

Politico.com, which first highlighted Planned Parenthood's upcoming strategy, reported that in addition to high-profile governor and federal legislative races, the group's funding would also target “several state legislative races, including campaigns in Arkansas, Iowa, and Pennsylvania where control of one or both legislative chambers is at stake.” The political news site noted that in some cases “state elections are more likely to affect the status of health and abortion policy than federal races, given the gridlock in Washington. In just the past year, Republican leaders in the targeted states of Texas, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina have enacted new regulations governing abortion clinics or insurance coverage for abortions.”

Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway said it is time for her party to take a more aggressive stance in battling Planned Parenthood's attack, saying that past GOP strategy toward the abortion giant's “anti-woman” charge against it has been to “ignore it like you're a pregnant teenager, hoping it'll go away, and nine months later it's a really big issue.” Susan B. Anthony List's Marjorie Dannenfelser was more critical in her appraisal of the GOP's passivity on the abortion issue, saying that pro-life Republicans “cannot afford another election cycle of crouching in a fetal position and hoping the attacks go away.”

Lila Rose, president and founder of the pro-life group Live Action, said that Planned Parenthood's announced pro-abortion campaign spending spree should prompt new calls to defund the billion-dollar abortion business. “There are no winners” she said, “except those making money by selling abortions, when Big Abortion leader Planned Parenthood pours millions into America's elections.”

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